Power failures: what are the bosses of Britain’s bust energy firms doing now?

theguardian.com:

For the coachloads of visitors lured to Fort Augustus on the southern shore of Loch Ness by the prospect of spotting the mythical marine monster, a collection of green shipping containers parked in a nearby field warrants barely a glance.

But for some, those shipping containers represent green gold. Late last year, the Auchteraw battery storage project, which pumps renewable power into the grid, was sold by the investment firm ILI Group to Field Energy for an undisclosed price.

Auchteraw is one of several UK sites being developed by Field, the latest venture from an investor with a chequered history in the energy market: Amit Gudka, co-founder of the bust gas and electricity supplier Bulb.

Gudka, 38, left the energy supplier in February 2021, before it collapsed last November amid soaring energy prices in a market that has toppled 31 suppliers since the start of last year.

Bulb was by far the largest failure – it had 1.7 million customers – and it remains in state-funded “special administration”. The ongoing support is expected to cost the taxpayer £2.2bn. A six-month hunt by its administrator, Teneo, has yet to yield a buyer.

An independent review into supplier failures by consultancy Oxera, published this month, found that Bulb had “inadequate levels and horizons for hedging arrangements”, leaving it exposed when wholesale prices soared. Suppliers are expected to lose £110m owed to them when Bulb entered administration.

Its failure has put the spotlight on its co-founders, Gudka and Hayden Wood, who used slick technology and marketing to rapidly grab market share while recording huge losses. They extracted £4m each in a 2018 fundraising, but had their holdings – once valued at more than £100m each – wiped out by the